VX

2. VX

One of the first chemical WMDs, researchers initially produced VX for retail sale in the 1950s as a Pesticide. Thankfully, your likelihood of coming in contact with VX is extremely low - the world's stockpiles have been destroyed, including the United States' main stockpile in anniston ,AL.

VX is the top 2 most dangerous chemical in the world.

VX chemical name is O-ethyl S-diisopropylaminomethyl methylphosphonothiolate, is hard to detect. It is a clear, tasteless and colourless liquid with a consistency something like engine oil.

VX is an extremely toxic synthetic chemical compound in the organophosphorus class, specifically, a thiophosphonate.

• Boiling point : 298 °C
• Formula : C₁₁H₂₆NO₂PS
• Melting point : −51 °C (−60 °F; 222 K)
• LD₅₀ (median dose) : 7 µg/kg (intravenous, rat)
• Log p : 2.047
• Vapor Pressure : 0.09 Pa
• Molar mass : 267.37 g/mol
• Density : 1.0083 g/cm.

Discovery...

The chemists Ranajit Ghosh and J.F. Newman discovered the V-series nerve agents at the British firm ICI in 1952, patenting diethyl S-2-diethylaminoethyl phosphono- thioate (agent VG) in November 1952. Further commercial research on similar compounds ceased in 1955 when its lethality to humans was discovered. The U.S. started production of large amounts of VX in 1961 at Newport Chemical depot.

The discovery occurred when the chemists were investigating a class of organophosphate compounds (organophosphate esters of substituted aminoethanethiols). Like gerhard scrader, an earlier investigator of organophosphates, Ghosh found that they were quite effective pesticides. In 1954, ICI put one of them on the market under the trade name Amiton. It was subsequently withdrawn, as it was too toxic for safe use. The toxicity did not go unnoticed, and samples of it were sent to the British Armed Forces research facility at porton down for evaluation. After the evaluation was complete, several members of this class of compounds became a new group of nerve agents, the V agents. The best-known of these is probably VX, assigned the UK Rainbow Code Purple Possum, with the Russian V-agent(VR) coming a close second (Amiton is largely forgotten as VG). The name is a contraction of the words "venomous agent X".